Right now I'm playing L.A Noire. It's actually a really awesome game. It's very intense story-wise. Maybe not the best gameplay mechanics in history, but I think it's a good game. Great acting and what not.

Right now I'm playing L.A Noire. It's actually a really awesome game. It's very intense story-wise. Maybe not the best gameplay mechanics in history, but I think it's a good game. Great acting and what not.

The acting is great. Missed opportunity as a good open-world cop game, booking randoms for various crimes etc. Needed more side missions.

The acting is great. Missed opportunity as a good open-world cop game, booking randoms for various crimes etc. Needed more side missions.

But a good game overall. Would've been perfect with those though.

Well, I'm a sucker for linear experiences though. So I don't really mind the low amount of side missions. But yea totally, you can never have too much variety.

It's very immersive though, and I actually feel like a kickass cop/investigator. The fact that Phelps is such a likeable character makes it even better ^^

Spontaneous thought: current-gen games really make me hope that sometime in the near future, we'll have much more fluid gameplay animations. Because jerky animations (that are present in all current-gen games) really kill immersion.

Well, I'm a sucker for linear experiences though. So I don't really mind the low amount of side missions. But yea totally, you can never have too much variety.

It's very immersive though, and I actually feel like a kickass cop/investigator. The fact that Phelps is such a likeable character makes it even better ^^

Spontaneous thought: current-gen games really make me hope that sometime in the near future, we'll have much more fluid gameplay animations. Because jerky animations (that are present in all current-gen games) really kill immersion.

I'm the same. I just thought it was a good way to capitalise for those that wanted to play good cop/bad cop on the streets.

Also regarding animations, you should check out PES 2014 - it's running on Kojima's FOX engine, and the animations are fluid. Even though you may not be into sports/soccer games, the gifs alone are worth to see.

If you like decent single player experiences that have a good few hours in them then I can't recommend it at all. If you have it or get it cheap then I will recommend it.

The Operations mode (single player story) is basically 10 (IIRC) missions which last from 3 minutes to 10 minutes each so it is very short. Each mission starts with a cut scene giving you back ground info on the upcoming assault, but there is no CGI or anything, merely just some images scroll and flash across.
There is also hostiles mode which is where you survive waves of enemies.

Just make sure you update to the latest patch as it fixes afew control issues and also multiplayer connection issues the game was first plagued with when released.

I had to turn the sensitivity up slightly but other than that it works well. Melee, grenades and flashes are used with the front touch screen, aiming these can be abit awkward at first.
You can toggle sprint to always on or sprint with a tap and hold of the back touch pad, I found sprint toggled on worked best as you don't need to think about what to press to get out of dodge quickly.

The AI isn't the best, enemies pretty much always know your position and sometimes can be randomly spam shooting at a wall that you're behind. They take cover pretty well and pop up for shots etc but nothing ground breaking.
Veteran difficulty is an absolute bastard, known to be harder than World at War's difficulty level. With the sometimes crappy AI, their pinpoint shooting and grenade spam with your tiny amount of health (and some time limits on some missions) makes veteran mode not for the faint hearted. I had a try at acouple of the more easier missions and I got my ass handed to me so will not be going back to that at all.

The multiplayer is 4v4 and most maps (not enough of them) are down scaled versions of the original black ops such as Nuketown and Firing range. As I said, since the update I have experienced no connection issues and always find a game. The game itself does have a busy multiplayer gathering. There is only afew modes compared to the console counterpart like free for all, Team death match and Kill confirmed to name afew.

I found most enjoyment for the offline experience came from clearing up some trophies, completing missions with set requirements, using specific weapons and getting 100% accuracy on some.
Beating the pit times (there is a range of pits as well which I guess can be added to the single player part of the game) and hostiles mode also adds some enjoyment and again, has trophies linked with these modes.

Pre patch this game was nothing more than a 3/10 tops with the constant connection issues online (which this is where CoDs are known to shine) was awful and should have never have gone gold in this state. Coupled with that the short single player experience meant there was not much on offer for the first CoD on the Vita.
The sound is also lacking, weapons sound similar grenades do not offer much sound affect and there feels no 'umph' behind any dramatic scenes or explosions.

Since the updates and replaying the entire single player, chucking some hours into multiplayer and replaying various missions for trophies etc I think this is worthy of a 6.5/10. Maybe nearing a 7 but the lack of length to the single player really lets it down.

At the end of the day it's a portable CoD which alot will like and alot will hate. Some will be disappointed with the length of the single player, others won't even touch it anyway because for them it's all about multiplayer.

Me personally, I've enjoyed it but only paid £11 for it. If someone asked me my thoughts on it paying £35-40 I'd be pissed to say the least.

1 last think to add, the first patch added support for Ad-Hoc multiplayer. So if you're with afew mates who have a Vita and CoD you can connect to each other without the need for a Internet connection. I've had good fun with this and some guys from work.

Sorry for the long post, the game gets alot of hate and deservedly so at its initial release but since then there has been some patches that have corrected alot of the issues (except the short single player) so felt it deserved a indepth write up for those on the fence about it. Or those who hated it at release and never revisited.

Cheers

as I know how much u play a game and that you're a well known trophy $#@!, I appreciate the length and depth of the review . if I can catch it on sale, I'll get it. I'm not paying 50$ for it tho

Started up the Old World Blues quest. I forgot how much the beginning drags on. Dialogue after dialogue after dialogue. I feel kind of bad now because I ended up skipping past most of it, I almost feel like loading up my save and going through it all again.

One thing I know for sure I'm doing is hooking up my controller to get a break from the keyboard/mouse.

Started up the Old World Blues quest. I forgot how much the beginning drags on. Dialogue after dialogue after dialogue. I feel kind of bad now because I ended up skipping past most of it, I almost feel like loading up my save and going through it all again.

One thing I know for sure I'm doing is hooking up my controller to get a break from the keyboard/mouse.

Yep - I've had to restart several times for various reasons. Beginning definitely drags. Though picks up once you get to New Vegas and meet certain people.

Also, I can't help but imagine Brett from FotC playing games whenever you post.

Yep - I've had to restart several times for various reasons. Beginning definitely drags. Though picks up once you get to New Vegas and meet certain people.

Also, I can't help but imagine Brett from FotC playing games whenever you post.

I'm surprised they never did that in the show, it would likely make for something humorous. That has me wanting to go watch the episodes now, recently I watched their YouTube video for Red Nose Day and had to spend an hour or two going through FotC videos on there.

I finally finished up OWBs, though missed one of the speech options to hear about the past visitors from Dr Klein (I think about Ulysses). Tomorrow I'll do Honest Hearts and maybe Lonesome Road. I've done HH once but I've never done LR, even though I got it recently after it released. I'm on PC and hopefully my mods work better with those than OWBs, where the game crashed on four different occasions.

If you like decent single player experiences that have a good few hours in them then I can't recommend it at all. If you have it or get it cheap then I will recommend it.

The Operations mode (single player story) is basically 10 (IIRC) missions which last from 3 minutes to 10 minutes each so it is very short. Each mission starts with a cut scene giving you back ground info on the upcoming assault, but there is no CGI or anything, merely just some images scroll and flash across.
There is also hostiles mode which is where you survive waves of enemies.

Just make sure you update to the latest patch as it fixes afew control issues and also multiplayer connection issues the game was first plagued with when released.

I had to turn the sensitivity up slightly but other than that it works well. Melee, grenades and flashes are used with the front touch screen, aiming these can be abit awkward at first.
You can toggle sprint to always on or sprint with a tap and hold of the back touch pad, I found sprint toggled on worked best as you don't need to think about what to press to get out of dodge quickly.

The AI isn't the best, enemies pretty much always know your position and sometimes can be randomly spam shooting at a wall that you're behind. They take cover pretty well and pop up for shots etc but nothing ground breaking.
Veteran difficulty is an absolute bastard, known to be harder than World at War's difficulty level. With the sometimes crappy AI, their pinpoint shooting and grenade spam with your tiny amount of health (and some time limits on some missions) makes veteran mode not for the faint hearted. I had a try at acouple of the more easier missions and I got my ass handed to me so will not be going back to that at all.

The multiplayer is 4v4 and most maps (not enough of them) are down scaled versions of the original black ops such as Nuketown and Firing range. As I said, since the update I have experienced no connection issues and always find a game. The game itself does have a busy multiplayer gathering. There is only afew modes compared to the console counterpart like free for all, Team death match and Kill confirmed to name afew.

I found most enjoyment for the offline experience came from clearing up some trophies, completing missions with set requirements, using specific weapons and getting 100% accuracy on some.
Beating the pit times (there is a range of pits as well which I guess can be added to the single player part of the game) and hostiles mode also adds some enjoyment and again, has trophies linked with these modes.

Pre patch this game was nothing more than a 3/10 tops with the constant connection issues online (which this is where CoDs are known to shine) was awful and should have never have gone gold in this state. Coupled with that the short single player experience meant there was not much on offer for the first CoD on the Vita.
The sound is also lacking, weapons sound similar grenades do not offer much sound affect and there feels no 'umph' behind any dramatic scenes or explosions.

Since the updates and replaying the entire single player, chucking some hours into multiplayer and replaying various missions for trophies etc I think this is worthy of a 6.5/10. Maybe nearing a 7 but the lack of length to the single player really lets it down.

At the end of the day it's a portable CoD which alot will like and alot will hate. Some will be disappointed with the length of the single player, others won't even touch it anyway because for them it's all about multiplayer.

Me personally, I've enjoyed it but only paid £11 for it. If someone asked me my thoughts on it paying £35-40 I'd be pissed to say the least.

1 last think to add, the first patch added support for Ad-Hoc multiplayer. So if you're with afew mates who have a Vita and CoD you can connect to each other without the need for a Internet connection. I've had good fun with this and some guys from work.

Sorry for the long post, the game gets alot of hate and deservedly so at its initial release but since then there has been some patches that have corrected alot of the issues (except the short single player) so felt it deserved a indepth write up for those on the fence about it. Or those who hated it at release and never revisited.

Cheers

Thanks for taking the time to write in detail this review (expect some rep). Will defo give it a go and see what it's like, as I said got it free with the Vita.

Saints Row: The Third, I'm back from vacation btw. My mom had an allergic reaction to something, and she couldn't breath properly, had bad pain around her back and stuff, so we decided to go back.
I'm also going to get into BF3 multiplayer again

I'm surprised they never did that in the show, it would likely make for something humorous. That has me wanting to go watch the episodes now, recently I watched their YouTube video for Red Nose Day and had to spend an hour or two going through FotC videos on there.

I finally finished up OWBs, though missed one of the speech options to hear about the past visitors from Dr Klein (I think about Ulysses). Tomorrow I'll do Honest Hearts and maybe Lonesome Road. I've done HH once but I've never done LR, even though I got it recently after it released. I'm on PC and hopefully my mods work better with those than OWBs, where the game crashed on four different occasions.

A FoTC playing games episode would have been hilarious!

The thing FNV I'm finding is making some decisions that are largely intertwining and have varying degrees of effect, and to various extremes. I think IIRC Fallout 3 was far more able to min/max certain choices, but this one is a tiny bit harder.

Thanks for taking the time to write in detail this review (expect some rep). Will defo give it a go and see what it's like, as I said got it free with the Vita.

I'm curious to know how you rate the platinum difficulty?

No worries
9/10 maybe even a 10. I know I won't be getting it anyway
There's also a trophy for getting 8 kills with 4 shots in a sniping mission, it's completely luck based due to the enemies taking different directions each time you play and there's pretty much no set points where 2 line up at the same time so that's abit frustrating. But the main problem area is the veteran difficulty in Ops mode. That is really tough.

The thing FNV I'm finding is making some decisions that are largely intertwining and have varying degrees of effect, and to various extremes. I think IIRC Fallout 3 was far more able to min/max certain choices, but this one is a tiny bit harder.

Decisions in New Vegas definitely require more thought than Fallout 3.

They start that out immediately with the Ringo quest in Goodsprings involving the Powder Gangers. Then in Primm you have the different choices of sheriff, all with varying outcomes.

You have to make choices based on who you want on your side, who you want against you and then about what you think it best for residents and NPCs. Fallout 3 just feels like someone is telling you exactly how to play the main story, while New Vegas let's it actually be an adventure.

No worries
9/10 maybe even a 10. I know I won't be getting it anyway
There's also a trophy for getting 8 kills with 4 shots in a sniping mission, it's completely luck based due to the enemies taking different directions each time you play and there's pretty much no set points where 2 line up at the same time so that's abit frustrating. But the main problem area is the veteran difficulty in Ops mode. That is really tough.

No worries
9/10 maybe even a 10. I know I won't be getting it anyway
There's also a trophy for getting 8 kills with 4 shots in a sniping mission, it's completely luck based due to the enemies taking different directions each time you play and there's pretty much no set points where 2 line up at the same time so that's abit frustrating. But the main problem area is the veteran difficulty in Ops mode. That is really tough.

College football time so playing Deer Hunter 2005 on the PC. This way I can sit up in my deer stand and occasionally glance over to see if any deer come around while spending a majority of the time watching the game.

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